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    • #135832

      It’s been a long time since I left my ex now, but recently it feels like my heart has finally caught up with my brain and I’ve started to accept that my abusive ex never did love me. It wasn’t love and I loved someone who didn’t exist.

      I’ve not loved him for a long time, even years before I left. It was the coercion, addiction, all of the manipulation tactics that kept me there with him.

      I feel really weird knowing and accepting he didn’t love me, never did and it was all about power and control. I feel incredibly emotional, hurt and angry and it all feels really delayed. I knew he was abusive, I knew it wasn’t love, I knew we were toxic for each other, I knew he was a n********t, I knew all of this and still do. I understand why I was attracted to the relationship through therapy / EMDR and working on myself, and why he was attracted to me. I have a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the entire situation.

      Now today, I’ve just woken up this morning and the realisation that he didn’t love me has hit me, and it feels so so delayed. I don’t know how to handle these waves of emotions. As f****d up as everything was, he was my first love and although I don’t feel love for him now, the realisation that our six-year relationship wasn’t real is knocking me off centre a bit.

      I really want to enjoy Christmas and my Birthday (Removed by moderator)) this year, and celebrate being free but I’m really hurting and finally letting go of the past from all this realisation. I’m a survivor, I survived the abuse, I’m surviving the recovery, I know I can do this. It’s just such an alienating feeling that you can’t really discuss with anyone.

    • #135833

      It’s like the time I wasted loving him, was a losing game. There was never a going to be a happy ending with him, and now I’m free, I’m still suffering from C-PTSD. I’m just so angry. I’m due on my period too and it isn’t helping.

      • #135845
        Eyesopening
        Participant

        I totally and utterly know exactly what you mean and I feel exactly the same way.
        And yes hormones always make things slightly worse. But remember there will also be better parts of the month when things seem great again!
        Though I am not so far as you, I still have doubts and still wonder if he loved me.
        I think it’s great your at this step and are so sure.

        I am the same, I can’t talk to anyone about it properly. Only in therapy and here.
        People think you should be fine/can’t understand. They will never understand.
        People who love us will be there and be patient.
        I also try to enjoy good times, but there is a dullness to things at the moment. I am also doing CBT for that day to day stuff and waiting for EMDR for trauma.
        My therapist said something very interesting. This may not apply to everyone, but i do think that alot of us probably had cracks, and abusers dig their claws into our cracks and put a wedge into them.

        She basically said: I had poor self esteem from early childhood because of the relationship with my dad, my first long term relationship was with a man a who was abusive towards me…..although that wasn’t what I had wish’d for for, it was, familiar and now without that in my life I feel that void and the underlying, dormant poor self esteem and self worth is likely to have been activated and resurfaced.

        So now I have so much work to do on myself. I mean work I was always going to have to do. But I was hoping life could start once I left, but it doesn’t work that way. I also was with him for around the same amount of years and it was my first relationship. But, thankgod we are out.

        Someone on here always says to me and I always like to remind myself of it:
        You are just on one stage of a journey, you will not always be here, it’s just a short chapter in your life. I will not always be where I am now.
        In one years time imagine where you want to be and focus on that

        Lots of love
        x*x

    • #135835
      KIP.
      Participant

      All these feelings are a normal part of recovery. We have to grieve for our relationship and our lost hopes and dreams and that’s a healthy way of dealing with it. So let those feelings wash over you. Healing from Hidden Abuse by Shannon Thomas is a good book x you will get through this part of the journey and look back wiser and stronger x

    • #135836

      Thanks KIP!

      Yes, you’re right. Why is it hormones make it all so much more intense?!? I’ve got that book in my list to read… trying to read a bit of lighthearted stuff at the moment to give my mind a break from Recovery over Christmas! I’ll attempt that next! 👍🏽 Thanks for the suggestion/ reminder of that book.

      I feel stronger from it for sure – just hate the a******e! XOX

    • #135837

      @Kip Merry Christmas btw.. xx

    • #135842
      KIP.
      Participant

      Hey Merry Christmas too you too. Things will get better. We are everything without them and they are nothing without us x onwards and upwards. Good riddance to bad rubbish x

    • #135930

      I can totally relate to this. I was with my abuser for (detail removed by moderator) years so how could he possibly not love me? There were times when I thought he did but realising that this was all part of it is the worst and so hard to get your head around.

      Try to think of all you have learnt from the relationship and how you would like to be treated going forward. You will never stand for it again and can tell yourself how brave you are. You might not have found your true strength had this not happened.

      It’s very hard to understand but things do become easier once you can see the positives.

      Sending love x

    • #136275
      Hopefulgreyrock
      Participant

      Yeah its really hard. It was last week i came to thr realisation ir wasn’t love. I wasn’t loved by him. The whole thing wasn’t real. I still can’t fully acceot ir because it hurts too much as I thought, so he had me believe we were soul mates.

      I waas upset about it all being a lie. My counsellor said his feelings might have been true but they came with a condition. That you had to make hik feel good. So the words he said, his feelings, they were real but with a condition that you mde him feel what he needed back. It helped me feel abit better about it.

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